The waters of five fountains in Naples turned blood red on Friday after a suspected far-right group poured dye into their basins in protest over Israel's offensive in Gaza.
Four fountains in the gardens outside the city hall in Piazza Municipio and another known as the 'artichoke fountain' in Piazza Trieste e Trento, near Piazza Plebiscito, were targeted.
Police found dozens of plastic-wrapped leaflets floating in the fountains bearing Celtic crosses and the name of the group, Cuib Napoli, who are thought to have links with right extremists.
Bearing the dates of Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza, the leaflet said: ''1,203 dead, 5,300 injured. The world sat back and watched from the sidelines''.
The incident echoed that of a former right-wing extremist who grabbed headlines worldwide in 2007 by dying the waters of Rome's Trevi Fountain red.
Graziano Cecchini threw dye into the basin in a bizarre act of vandalism apparently inspired by the Futurists of the early 20th century.
Cecchini, 54, carried out his stunt during the Rome Film Festival, delighting tourists and enraging officials.
''There's the red carpet and now red Trevi too,'' he said, adding that he was trying to raise awareness of the plight of Italy's casual workers.
The dye assault was claimed by 'FTM Futurist Action 2007', a previously unknown group which said it aimed to turn this ''grey bourgeois society into a triumph of colour''.
Cecchini followed up the attack on the iconic fountain by sending about half a million coloured balls thundering down Rome's Spanish Steps in January 2008.
As tourists rushed about picking up souvenir balls, police quickly cordoned off the area and called in the municipal refuse collectors. They arrived a little later with large nets to scoop up the coloured spheres.
Cecchini said the prank was a protest against the ''balle'' (balls, or lies) allegedly fed to a gullible public by politicians of all stripes.
He faced charges of defacing monuments, creating a mess in a public place and stopping buses and taxis running with his stunts.
He was not prosecuted for the more serious crime of damaging Italy's cultural heritage after cleaners managed to remove all traces of red dye from the Trevi fountain.
